Geographical research on the rehabilitation systems of agricultural areas in today's urbanized Japanese society

2005 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 14580079
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Human geography
• Research Institution: Saitama University
• Principal Investigator: MOTOKI Yasushi Saitama University, Liberal Arts, Professor, 教養学部, 教授 (00092023)
• Project Period (FY): 2002 – 2005
• Keywords: Japan / urbanized society / land use type crop / Tanba variety / historical process / rehabilitation systems / sweet industry / low tree height cultivation

Research Abstract

The evolution of today's "urbanized society" in Japan has raised serious problems such as labor shortage, farmers aging and products prices. In order to examine how agricultural areas behave under these new conditions, chestnut planted areas as an example are examined. Following the historical trend of chestnut cultivation areas and recent new trends have emerged.
(1) Chestnut tree (Castanea Crenata) mostly grows wild in Japan. It has been used for many purposes by the Japanese since Jomon period. After rice cultivation was introduced, a Tanba variety chestnut with large fruit was improved from wild varieties around the ancient city at Kinai District, and it has been proliferated around Kanto area during the Edo era. And with the expansion of commercial agriculture after Meiji, the production of Tanba variety chestnut was preferred from the beginning of the Showa era. Furthermore, it spread in wide range during the high economic growth period (the postwar), and increased in both area an d the yields.
(2) With the progression of urbanization, Japan's chestnut production declined on planted areas and production volumes since the second half of the 1980's until today. However, in chestnut producing areas a remarkable change was widely diffused. Trimming is common in order to obtain low tree to fulfill the market expectations, especially in sweet industry, for quality and simplicity of management.
(3) Contemporary chestnut production is related with (a) low tree heights and machine work for cultivation by the fulltime farmers, and (b) the unique formation of producing districts by collaboration between growers and industrial transformers and (c) in some remote places (hilly-mountains in southwestern Japan), relatively small scale cultivation by contract between growers and industrial transformers has occurred. Although (c) is expected, severe natural conditions and the labor force constraints may put in risk the future of this economic activity. (a) and (b) every time both types accept local conditions, giving a big suggestion is expected in the future.